Good replacement for Signal

I’ve been using Signal as my default messaging app but now they are going to disable Signal to read SMS and MMS. It doesn’t seem worth having two apps to do end-to-end encryption (e2ee) messaging and look at text messages.

Is there an alternative messaging app that:

  • will work on iOs and Android;

  • read SSM and MMS

  • allow e2ee messaging for members

  • is free and

  • allows group chats. For example, family, friends, et cetera?

Element can be a good replacement for signal, it has almost all required features, but sms support. There are some FOSS sms readers on f-droid

Thanks, but if it doesn’t have SMS then I may as well stick to Signal.

sms should obsolete it is most insecure mode of communication present till the date.
one should not use it at all. in simple terms

Err, how is it any insecure compared to the data present with companies and all sorts of data breaches happening till date and which will continue to happen?

Because, even the most incompetant and vulnerable of those companies now use TLS for client -server interactioms. So the data cannot easily be viewed in transit. SMS can be read by anyone with access to any of the interim network it passes through. They are, by a small degree more secure.

Yes, but people still send me SMS and I need to be able to read them. That’s where Signal was good. I only needed one app to read secured messaging and SMS.

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What if we still use the last Signal APK which supported SMS? Would it not work for sometime?
Also, I cannot recollect, but was Signal not on F-Droid? Cannot seem to find it on any repos.

Until they threaten you to kick you off their network for using an old client.

No, Moxie didn’t allow it

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Lol (for threaten).

Ohh yeah, I recollect it now.

There is “Signal-FOSS” in a third-party repo: Signal-FOSS - TwinHelix

(This refers only to the question whether Signal is or was on F-Droid)

Exactly. This is the one I spoke above about.

really I disadvice SMS within crypted app, because :

*you will have one app for two different protocols and channels (ie crypted vs clear sms, ie gsm/cell vs internet/ip)

  • because it’s always better to divide things, to control better
    *to prevent in case of your app could not send through sms when both sender/received are not online at the same time

to be specific, for the last one : signal, whapp, telegram, or imessages/rcs are all using data/internet ; those can be used without the requirement of an active cell connection, eg using wifi. Well, I always prefer to dissociate. First, because each app you know it will be send encrypted or not, or by wifi or cell network.

when I was using years ago iphone 3G with imessage, it happened lot of time that the apple system does not check if both correspondents are online at the same time, and for me real time is very important : when I send a text using SMS, I know it would be received at the same time. iMessage was mixing : both sms + iM in the same conversation. Wrong : Im not among persons whom have data enabled everytime. Never. Only via wifi, or at specific time, manually, outside. Never always cell data enabled.
so if I go outside at this old time, hundred of meters of home (to put rubbish out, to help a neighboor, to go to a store or something), Im not near wifi connection, so I can received SMS messages only. Not a problem.

what I was thinking? iM correspondents texts would be transmitted to me through SMS, after iM saw I was not online since few minutes, so it might be sent to me through traditionnal SMS.
Wrong : Few hours I went back at home when I received about dozen of iM at the second I was back connected to wifi. Few hours later ! means iM never made their system sending it to SMS when I was saw as disconnected in their systems. Means for a friend watiing for me, or asking me somehing urgent, “well you dont repy to sms I send it two hours ago!!”, well, I had no nternet on the iphone, iM was supposed to know it and transmit them thought sms/gsm cell network, as usual !
It did not.
it was a problem for me.
since this time, and this incident happened several time, at least a dozen, in few weeks, I gave up iM. Not because I dislike it, but because it manage iM Internet messages and SMS cell text messages in only one app, and does not transmit them via sms when destinator is not connected. So after few months of iM, I definitely gave up on that.

I still use connected apps for discussing through internet, with app using only internet to discuss, not mixing it. Im ungoogled on my android (lineage) since few years, I have no rcs, I read rcs is an ip/internet messaging system, like whapp, telegram, signal, zoom, skype etc… But I dont want something to mix : to be sure of the realtime (almost, in fact, a minute) between sms is sent, and sms is received, I want to manage them in an app for SMS only, and others app for everything but no SMS, because I know mixing app did it very well, and permanent internet is a requirement, which I do not have.

thanks for reading:)

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